Uniqlo's trademark is affordable, practical, often colorful basics and functional fashion pieces, such as $3.30 dress socks and $9.90 shirts for men.

Photo: Laura Morton / Drew Altizer

Uniqlo's trademark is affordable, practical, often colorful basics...

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"We plan to open 20 to 30 new stores annually" between now and 2020, says Uniqlo's Yasunobu Kyogoku. The first of three stores opened in New York's SoHo in 2006. The San Francisco outlet is the fifth U.S. store.

"Whether you're 6 or 60, we have something for you," says Yasunobu Kyogoku, the chief operating officer in the United States for Japanese clothing company Uniqlo. The corporate slogan is "Made for All."

While past performance is no indication of local results, when Uniqlo opens on Oct. 5 in San Francisco, that "something for you" may very well be a Heattech garment. Consumers worldwide bought 120 million of them last year.

After two months of popping up at events like the recent J-Pop festival in Japantown, and in a Post Street shop, Uniqlo's first West Coast store will be a 29,000-square-foot space on Powell Street near the cable car turnaround. It is the latest outpost of a company that began in 1949 and opened its first store in Hiroshima in 1984 when a mashup of the name, Unique Clothing, and a typo created Uniqlo.

Today, the company's hallmark is affordable, practical, often colorful basics and functional fashion pieces, such as $3.30 dress socks and $9.90 shirts for men. The ultra-stretch jeans for women are $39.90, and men's fleece pieces start at $19.90. For the store opening, the signature 100 percent cashmere sweaters will be $49.90 to $59.90.

Kyogoku, a product of Columbia, Oxford and the University of Tokyo, insisted when he answered questions via e-mail that "we are not a fast-fashion brand. ... It's about creating casual basics, with a hint of fashion and technology fused together."

That philosophy may be why the company finds inspiration in Apple rather than Gap. The company, officially known since 1991 as Fast Retailing, has a goal of building to $10 billion in North American sales by 2020, according to Kyogoku.

"We plan to open 20 to 30 new stores annually between now and then to get us to that goal," he said. The first of three stores opened in New York's SoHo in 2006. The San Francisco outlet is the fifth U.S. store, opening days after a 40,000-square-foot shop in New Jersey, a state that proved unwelcoming in 2007.

Interestingly, Muji, another Japanese retailer with cult status, is also opening its first West Coast store here in November. With 7,250 square feet of retail space at 540 Ninth St., Muji plans to carry about 300 clothing options and 1,700 household items.

To build buzz and momentum in the weeks leading up to its opening, Uniqlo tapped Maru, the feline YouTube sensation with a well-documented box fixation, as well as locals like 49er great Joe Montana; Goapele, the Oakland native singer-songwriter; Danny Bowein of Mission Chinese Food; and lifestyle blogger Brit Morin, who have recently appeared at food- and tech-themed panels at the pop-up location.

Fashion collaborators include Orla Kiely, who appeared at the London flagship store for Fashion's Night Out, and Jun Takahashi, of the punky street-style label Undercover, who designed kids' wear as part of a family line, UU.

Yet the company's expansion into North American cities and malls may work against its cult-brand aura. Robert Shultz, assistant professor of fashion merchandising management at the Fashion Institute of Technology, who is also a consultant for Asian and South American retailers FIT, says that after a "flurry" of excitement in New York, many shoppers have moved on. "Frankly, it's a little bit boring," he said.

From Jakarta to Manhattan, where he has compared Uniqlo to H&M and Forever 21, he finds Uniqlo stores lack excitement, even in Tokyo. The stores don't change much from visit to visit, he says, adding that Uniqlo's neat color-coded displays "are old-fashioned thinking. Go into H&M, they do not miss with fashion, and there are piles on the floor. People dig through stuff."

That's not the Uniqlo way. The company trains all store managers in Japan so they understand the importance of what Kyogoku calls "small touches," such as returning a customer's credit card with two hands, spotless stores, hemming jeans on-site, uniformly folded stock, and neat displays that form the brand's trademark walls of clothes stacked by color.

As for fusing fashion and technology, expect gee-whiz, the-future-is-now gadgetry at the San Francisco store. It may help customers find the perfect fit. It may do something else. Kyogoku's not telling, but he's excited about it, and the online store opening later this autumn.

More immediately accessible is the textile technology. The iconic ultralight down jacket weighs 7.2 ounces, the same as three eggs, and comes with a pouch for fold-up-umbrella portability. The high-tech super-thin fabrics, known as Heattech, keep the wearer warm or cool, depending on the garment, and were developed with Toray Industries, the carbon fiber manufacturer that also supplies lightweight materials to Boeing and Mercedes-Benz.

That kind of adaptability breeds loyalty.

Sabrina Buell, the San Francisco art adviser, who has been buying her Uniqlo jeans in Soho, figures that "every day of the week the bottom half of me is in Uniqlo."

"They are the only jeans and pretty much the only pants I own," she said. "I love the colors and I love that they hem them for you in the store and they are ready in minutes. I love they way they fade over time - I am still wearing pairs I bought five years ago, and each pair is worn at least 50 times a year. I can wash them, dry them, wear them to work or to an opening or to the beach and they always look great."